


the end of summer

by boywonder



Category: The Last of Us
Genre: Gen, Missing Scene
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-22
Updated: 2018-12-22
Packaged: 2019-09-24 12:14:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,003
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17100404
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/boywonder/pseuds/boywonder
Summary: “I don’t know about this, Joel,” Ellie said, looking down at the water. It was pretty clear, all things considered, but she couldn’t see the bottom. That was the part that scared her. She knew Joel wouldn’t let her drown, but she wasn’t fond of water. There was no telling what wasinthe water, or how deep it was, and those things bothered her.“C’mon, Ellie, you should know how to swim at least a little bit,” Joel responded in his usual gruff tone. “Now, I can’t make a swimmer out of you in a day, but I can at least teach you how to not drown.”





	the end of summer

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Selkit](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Selkit/gifts).



> I tried to balance your request for something lighthearted with the overall horror genre of canon. I hope I got the right balance for you. Happy Yuletide!

**the end of summer**

“I don’t know about this, Joel,” Ellie said, looking down at the water. It was pretty clear, all things considered, but she couldn’t see the bottom. That was the part that scared her. She knew Joel wouldn’t let her drown, but she wasn’t fond of water. There was no telling what was _in_ the water, or how deep it was, and those things bothered her. 

“C’mon, Ellie, you should know how to swim at least a little bit,” Joel responded in his usual gruff tone. “Now, I can’t make a swimmer out of you in a day, but I can at least teach you how to not drown.”

Ellie turned sceptical eyes on Joel, but he predictably didn’t budge. 

_No one’s gonna be there to save us next time,_ he didn’t say. She thought it anyway, though, and had to look away from him for a minute.

“We ain’t got a lot of time,” he said, and walked into the water. Ellie noticed the slightest bit of a wince in his face. The day was warm enough, but the water apparently wasn’t. That didn’t make this any easier. At least he wasn’t the type to gripe about it. She resolved that she wouldn’t, either. Anyway, he’d probably just get annoyed.

She clenched her jaw and followed him into the water. Even though she’d mentally prepared as best as she could, it was still cold at first. She kept her promise to herself not to bitch about it, though.

Joel had waded into the still lake up to his waist and stopped to wait for her. She caught up to him, though of course the water was much higher than her waist by the time she reached him. She had her arms wrapped around herself, partially to keep from shivering (even though it wasn’t _that_ cold), and partially just because she had no idea what to _do_ with them.

He held out a hand to her, which surprised her. He almost never touched her. At first, she’d thought it was because he was afraid she’d somehow infect him by touching him. Now, she thought it was just too personal. He was afraid of _aff_ ection, not _in_ fection. She didn’t touch him most of the time because she was worried he’d go off on her for it. But now, she unwrapped her arms and reached out to take his hand. He could have probably fit like four of her hands in one of his. She thought about how brutal his hands could be, inflicting death and pain like it was _easy_ for him. But when he took her hand, he was gentle about it. He pulled her a few steps closer, but not roughly, not impatiently.

“All right. Just listen to what I want you to do before you get upset about it,” he started.

She made a face at him. That was _definitely_ no way to start any kind of conversation, and it especially wasn’t any way to teach someone something.

He continued anyway, “You gotta just lay back. You’re gonna float on your own, but it’s easy to flail all over. If you do that, you’ll sink. If you just stay calm and lay there, you’ll float. And I won’t let you fall, so don’t worry about it. Okay?”

Ellie stared at him, back to scepticism. He’d been right when he’d said she wouldn’t like it.

It was quiet for a minute, besides the sound of the water lapping just barely at the shore they’d left, and a bird calling in the nearby woods.

“Come on, Ellie,” he said, letting her hand go. “Lay back. You can close your eyes if it’s easier.”

She took a deep, slightly shaky breath. He wasn’t exactly a great person to travel with, all things considered, but he was all she had. And he was right about knowing how to not drown. Hopefully he wasn’t lying when he said he wouldn’t let her sink. He’d come this far with her, but he could still just let her die or whatever. Though there were probably way easier ways to let her die than let her drown in the shallow end of a lake, weren’t there?

She leaned back into the cold water. That part wasn’t so bad.

“You gotta lift your feet up,” Joel instructed. 

She was privately impressed with how patient he was being. He wasn’t patient about _anything_. She squeezed her eyes shut and picked her feet up before he could go back to being an impatient dick about everything.

She’d been in the water before, a little, but this was...weird and scary. She felt almost disconnected from the earth somehow, like there was nothing under her, or above her…

She panicked and started to sink.

Joel was there, right away, with one hand under her back, and the other under her feet.

“Easy,” he said. “You’re all right.”

Ellie swore she could hear her heart pounding in her ears. She heard Joel talking, though didn’t really register the words, and tried to calm herself. She was still tense, but she managed to stay afloat. As soon as he was sure she wasn’t sinking, Joel took his hands away again.

“All right,” he said. “Now just move your arms a little, like this,” he said. His words were muffled a bit by the water lapping up around her ears, but she still understood. He demonstrated what he wanted her to do, putting his arms at his sides, then lifting them away, and pushing them back down again.

She couldn’t help but laugh a little at how silly that looked. She stopped laughing when she started to sink again.

“Uh-huh, that’s what you get,” Joel said, but his hands were underneath her again, just like they’d been the first time. Even if she laughed at him, he wasn’t going to let her go under.

She wasn’t sure how to feel about that, because it was so unlike him. 

She swallowed the emotion she felt clogging her throat and did as he’d told her, moving her arms. She was surprised by the way that propelled her backwards, away from him. That almost made her panic again, but she realised she wasn’t sinking. She moved her arms again, less forcefully. She raised her head a little, awkwardly, to see where Joel was. He was right there at her feet, following her.

“You’re gonna wanna turn round and go towards the deeper part, now,” he said. “Not too deep, but you’ll get a better feel for it there than you will out here.”

“Well, how do I turn around?” she asked.

“Just like rowin’ a boat,” he said, though of course he knew she’d never done that. “Just move one of your arms like you done both before, and you’ll turn the opposite way. Move your right arm to turn yourself to the left.”

That sounded like bullshit to her, but she did it anyway, marvelling at how it worked. It didn’t seen to be an exact science, and she wobbled, but she _turned_. 

“That’s it,” he said, still following her.

He had her move her arms a couple other ways to move differently. She wasn’t great at any of it, but she managed not to sink, even when she was scared.

After awhile, he let her just float there on her own, though he wasn’t far away. If she panicked again, he’d still be close enough to catch her.

Tired of moving her arms around, Ellie finally just lay there on the water, feeling that strange, disconnected feeling. She wasn’t sure how deep she was, or if her feet would touch the bottom here. Joel was still there, of course, and he could stand fine, but that didn’t give her much idea of the comparison. It felt unreal out here, and quiet. She could almost enjoy it, as long as she didn’t think about anything that had come not long before this. 

“Ellie,” she heard Joel say. His voice was a little bit strained. She opened her eyes again to look for him, but he was behind her, and she couldn’t see him. She _could_ see something floating toward them, though. It looked like a person.

She knew better, but panicked anyway. If it was an Infected, Joel was in danger. She actually had no idea what would happen if she was bitten again, like if that would somehow overcome her apparent immunity, and she didn’t want to find out. And even if Joel didn’t like her, she didn’t want to watch him die, either. She’d watched too many people die already.

She pitched upward, trying to get her feet under her, but the water made that difficult. Her inability to right herself made her panic harder. She almost screamed.

After what seemed like forever, she felt hands on her shoulders. She _did_ scream then, and tried to turn to fight off what she imagined to be either an Infected or another hunter.

“Easy, _easy_!” came Joel’s voice, distorted by her own fear and the commotion of splashing she was making.

She felt one of his arms come around her, and she held tightly to him as he pulled her backwards away from the body floating towards them.

“It’s just a body, it can’t hurt you none,” he said, sternly, not out of anger, but to get her to listen to him.

She tried to calm herself again, and only halfway managed. At least she managed to stop kicking, for the most part. Joel ignored her flailing and half-carried her back out of the water, setting her on the shore. She stood there for a minute, dripping wet and gasping to make air make sense.

Joel moved like he always did, quickly and with deadly purpose. He pulled one of his guns out, aimed it, and shot the floating corpse twice: once in the shoulder, and once in the head. The shots echoed on the quiet lake. The body didn’t move, react, or even bleed.

“I thought it was _just a body_ ,” Joel,” Ellie said, her voice raised because of her still-present panic.

Joel shoved his gun back in its holster and turned toward her. “Yeah, well, can’t be too careful anyway,” he said.

He moved away again, back over by the packs, and pulled out one of the rough blankets he’d gotten somewhere before they’d gotten out of the city. He brought it back and wrapped it around her.

“You all right?” he asked, hesitantly, as if he didn’t know if the words were right.

Ellie pulled the blanket closely around herself and glared at him. “Yeah, I’m _fine_ ,” she snapped.

Concern turned to annoyance on Joel’s face for a second before he caught himself. “All right, look. If I’d’ve told you it was anything but a body, you’d just have gotten more freaked out. It don’t take a lot of thrashing in water to drown, and I toldja I wasn’t gonna let you sink.”

Ellie kept right on glaring at him for a minute before her face changed, too, softening into relief that brought forgiveness with it.

After a minute, she said, “Your aim sucked.”

He stared at her for a minute. Then, surprising both of them, he laughed. “Yeah, wasted a bullet, didn’t I?”

She laughed too, and nodded. “Yeah. Clumsy.”

“Yeah,” he said, through his laughter.

“Joel?” she asked, more serious again, once they’d stopped laughing.

“Yeah?”

“I don’t wanna swim in this lake anymore.”

He nodded, and turned to pick up the packs again. “Yeah. Well, let’s get away from the shore and we’ll get a fire goin’ for the evening. You keep that blanket til you’re dry.”

Ellie took another look back out at the water. It had mostly stilled again, besides the regular lapping of the waves on the shore. She looked at the unfortunate corpse for another moment, then shivered, but not from cold, before turning to follow Joel into the shelter of the trees.


End file.
